Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
A & O – 68th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Qualico Family Centre, Assiniboine Park
Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
(please check against delivery)
Fellow Manitobans, good morning and welcome to this opportunity to keep up to date on the work of a vital community agency.
We’re gathered today in a special place for Winnipeggers – Assiniboine Park. And this beautiful patch of river forest and field that means so much to Winnipeggers is in the heart of Treaty One land and the heartland of the Red River Metis.
This province we care about is built on the ancestral and treaty lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota and Dene nations and the home of the Red River Metis and includes northern lands that are and have been home to the Inuit. Manitobans are dedicated to partnership with Indigenous people and to building a future based on truth, reconciliation and understanding.
While we gather today to learn more about the important work A & O Support Services does to enhance safety, security and quality of life for older Manitobans, we hold in our hearts the family and friends from across our province who are impacted as a result of forest fires.
For older residents of communities in the path of the fires – primarily in northern communities – this has been especially difficult.
A massive effort to fight the fires has been accompanied by an outpouring of support to assist and protect fire evacuees – because that is what people in a caring province do.
That same spirit of compassion and willingness to get involved has fueled A & O Support Services for 68 years.
As Honorary Patron, I am proud of the work done by this organization’s staff and volunteers, who work to meet the needs of older adults through A and O’s Three Pillars of counselling, safety and security and social engagement.
The thousands of hours volunteers dedicate to A and O’s programs provide older adults with emotional, social and material support that enables healthy, independent living.
Whether you are paid staff or a volunteer, whether your service is in person or online, whether you’re delivering information or food or gifts, raising funds or the spirits of older adults, you are helping to make our city and province the fair, equitable and compassionate place we know it can be.
To all who make this organization and its work possible, thank you for your faith in a better society and thank you for your time, skills and energy.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom
